Just starting comic/graphic novels

hey guys, this is my first post and was wondering what everyone’s opinions were about collecting the comics, the pro’s and con’s. Is it better to get the single issues as they are released or wait for the trade paperbacks? Is there any extra content in the single issues that isn’t featured in the collected issues? Which is the better paper quality and size? I collect the physical books so am interested in what everyone else thinks.

 

The collected trades are my choice. They're more durable, they do sometimes have additional content (for example featuring different variant covers from the single issues), and every time I try to go with single issues purchases I invariably end missing an issue.

 

When I get the free comic book day of mirror broken there a designing mirror broken feature about 4 pages long that I wasn’t sure was in the trade paperback, plus the 1st issue of disco the light of kahless, had an open channels section with Q&A which wasn’t in the trade book. Just wondering if all the single issues have these kind of features.

 

The Mirror Broken trade does not contain the “making of” feature from the 0 issue. The trades don’t reprint the “Open Channels” columns, either. I can only remember a couple of occasions where the trade contained bonus material that hadn’t appeared in the single issues. So,if you want all that stuff, go with the singles

 

If you don't mind waiting a little longer for the stories, I'd definitely go with the collected paperbacks. They last longer and look better on a bookshelf. You can also read for a little longer, as a single issue won't take much longer than 15 mins to read.

And while they do go out of print, you also have a bit more time to get them/decide what you want to read - look at reviews of the whole run for example. You can also buy great old runs that are still in print like bits of Claremont's X-Men or Alan Moore's Swamp Thing.

 

https://shop.eaglemoss.com/usa/star-trek-graphic-novels Here's how I've been collecting all the old comics. They are in nice hardback volumes. Unfortunately there have been some screwups in a few of the collections. A page either printed in the wrong spot, or not printed at all.

 

Collected trades are way better value, and have no risk of missing an episode - if it's self-contained limited-issue stories. If it's ongoing constantly, a regular order probably works better.

 

I prefer trade collections. It was a sequence of TNG comics that lead me to blacklist comics for a long while: a four-part story featuring the return of the Borg, called The Worst of Both Worlds. I started collecting them, and then they got to the final part, promised as an extra long issue, celebrating that it was #50. And everyone bought it out. It was gone when I came to find it. I'm sure there are reasons, but I don't care, I was livid. I still don't care. I hate comics in their individual issue format, hate them! It was something like 10-15 years later that I stumbled on that final issue to complete the story, and I put the thing back and walked away.

It was only Star Wars that made comics something I felt I would dabble in again, and that was when I was able to get the Dark Empire story in a single package.

For a long time, my only comic collecting has been in trade form. I have made a few exceptions in more recent years. One exception was the comic adaptation of the rough draft for George Lucas's script, The Star Wars, which is so different from the original movie. I made an exception with that series because there was doubt that it would get a trade collection release. I made damn sure I got every issue, collected with angry fanaticism. When it was release in trade, I got that to replace the individual issues.

The other exceptions were my return to the world of ST comics. I got the DC TOS volumes 1 and 2, when they continued to not get trade collection releases. Being able to find large batches of them collected together on ebay, with no missing issues, broke through my blacklisting of the format. And sometime last year I found a new comic shop I had never visited, and the had all the DC TNG comics lined up; the shop owner was willing to work with me and arrange things so that I could buy them at over the course of a couple of months and help make sure they wouldn't disappear.

Making my way through DC TOS Volume 1, I have gotten in the groove of reading the letters column, which is an interesting window into how fans reacted to the series at the time. It's almost like visiting and lurking in a fan forum and reading fan commentary about the state of a franchise nowadays. That's something that is kind of fun, but it's not major. I'm not a huge fan of all the advertising pages that are loaded into those individual issues.

Effectively, though, the individual issues format is still blacklisted in my book. The rare exceptions are a mark of how much I wanted a series that has never been made available in trade (or omnibus collections). The DC TOS volumes never having been collection in trade or omnibus formats is wrong. I would get the Eaglemoss collections, but I would prefer them in paperback...that is one case were my mind says, "I already have them."

 

I get most of my comics digitally, and whether or not I do collections or individual issues depends on several factors. I usually prefer collected editions, but sometimes series don't have digital versions of the trades available so I have to get the individual issues, and there have been a few times where the individual issues were on sale cheaper than the collection, so in that case I'll go with the individual issues too.

 

Do all the individual issues come with letter pages, extra content, making of etc..the trade paperbacks just seem to be the stories. Anyone got “the q conflict” issue 1 and is there anything else in there except the story